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Banned TS Loses Case, Tried to Sue Judge

By Joann Loviglio
Associated Press

Contributed by Elizabeth Parker
Lebanon, PA

As a teen-age transsexual growing up in this small, working-class city on the fringe of Amish country, it would seem everyone would know -- or at least know about -- Raul Valentin.

After all, the arrest that he alleges led to a judge ordering him to get out of town occurred when he was taking hormone injections to enhance his breast size -- and was wearing a bikini at a swimming pool.

However, the man who lost an appeal Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court, which said he couldn't sue the judge, doesn't seem to have made much of an impression with residents.

At least, they don't seem to share his memory of events.

Valentin was arrested in Lebanon in 1987 and charged with assaulting a man with a knife at a local swimming pool. Although taking hormone injections at the time, the 19-year-old had not yet had sex change surgery.

He says that after a jail test revealed he had the AIDS virus, Common Pleas Court Judge G. Thomas Gates banished him for life from the conservative Eastern Pennsylvania community of porch-front rowhouses and corner diners, where traffic has to stop for coal trains rolling through the heart of downtown.

Valentin tried to pursue a federal civil rights lawsuit against the judge, alleging Gates "unlawfully sentenced him to life away from his home and family." The Supreme Court justices rejected his claim, letting stand lower court rulings that said the judge had full immunity from Valentin's case.

Despite his lawsuit and appeals, courthouse employees said Tuesday they did not even recall Valentin's arrest case.

And residents who say they remember Valentin said he was not run out of town as he claimed. Many residents who said they knew Valentin refused to give their names or discuss the decade-old events that led to Monday's decision.

"I just remember hearing he had a record and was a troublemaker," said Roseann Stickley, as she window-shopped along the city's main thoroughfare with her granddaughter in tow. "Even with that, I'm sure the judge didn't kick him out. You can't get away with doing that kind of thing."

But Valentin's lawyer, Don Bailey, said that's precisely what happened.

"He essentially was told, `We don't want your kind of people around here,'" Bailey said.

There was no comment from Gates on what he told Valentin. The judge did not immediately return calls Tuesday.

Bailey was critical of the Supreme Court ruling.

"Every American should be afraid of what this decision stands for," Bailey said. "This is an example of judicial power run amok, and it needs to be brought into check."

Valentin said that after the judge's order, police took him to the bus station and gave him a one-way ticket to New York City, where he now lives in a hospice.

Bailey said Valentin hasn't been in his hometown for 11 years.

"I tried to talk him into (returning home), but he's frightened," said Bailey.

Resident Robert Stoudt said Valentin was treated fairly.

"Nobody chased him out," he said. "But it's probably better for everybody that he left -- for him and for us."

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